ST. HELENS HOSPITAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15100, 24 March 1911, Page 4

ST. HELENS HOSPITAL.

Some degree of appositeness may perhaps be discerned in the celebration of the thousandth' birth at St. Helens Hospital, Dunedin, upon the sixty-third anniversary of the foundation of the Otago settlement. Thai hospitaJ itself, in common with the similar hospitals in other centres, will ever remain as a, monument to .the memory of Mr Seddon, to whcee initiative its establishment is clue. As Mr Fowlds reasonably claimed at tho unique and, eminently successful function which was held yesterday, the object for -which St. 'Helens Hospital iras inaugurated, and is maintained, now commends itself strongly to both the Bcntiment and the common sense of the community. When the scheme was first mooted doubts were freely expressed as to the wisdom of the State exploiting a domain previously covered, however imperfectly, by privato enterprise, but it must be acknowledged that the result of over five years' experience has been to justify, and move than justify, the departure. Under tho must favourable conditions the penalties alt-aching to motherhood are grave in the extreme, and whatever tends to ca«s tliose conditions and to lighten the attoiidant penalty merits the wannest support and the moot whole-hearted sympathy. Tho celebration of the thousandth birth at St, Helens Hospital

in this city within a little moro than five years of existence testifies ,to the welcome aid and timely assistance rendered to .an average of tivo hundred mothers ever) , year—a really magnificent vcoud, especially when it is remembered that only one of the thousand patients' received within the Hospital succumbed to (the unwelcome intruder Death. The patronage extended , to St. Helens represents in itself an eloquent testimony to the need of the institution, and ft especially points to the numbers of mothers, who whether by reason of isolation of residence or of other disabilities, have stood in need in the past of the existence of some such establishment. In this connection it , vs to be observed that stress may legitimately be laid on the fact that a. great deal'of the success that has attended the- work at St. Helens, especially as reflected in the remarkably small percentage of fatalities, ie due to the •exercise of medical supervision over the patient for some time prior to the birth of the child. Many of the complications which have dangerous, if rot fatal, results in maternity cases are attributed to lack of knowledge on the part of the patient at a time when the human organism is peculiarly susceptible to' untoward influence, and it will be apparent that medical attention ot t-hJ3 stage is necessarily of great benefit. Mr Fowlds paid a well-deserved tribute to the work of Dr Siedeberg, the medical officer; to liias Holford, the matron; and to tho staff of nurses, and'alao referred to the fact that not only is St. Helens doing a noble work in alleviating the position of the many mothers who are patients, but it is also extending its work throughout the land in the training of nurses. • Already some forty nurses have paesed their examinations and been certificated as an outcome of their experience at St. Helens, and their number is being annually increased. It is a 'recognised axiom that every healthy child is a valuable asset to the State, and there is- good reason to congratulate all connected with the St. Helens Hospital upon the prominence given to the institution in the pleasing peculiarity of the celebration of yesterday.